[.ca] Trail: Paper Poetry (ISBN 1416948945)

Brilliant artistry & his best to date:
With "Trail: Paper Poetry", David Pelham has definitely outdone himself. The pop-ups in this book are created entirely in white and very reminiscent of Sabuda's Winter White collection. Each page follows a silvery trail through a giant garden full of flowers and foliage, a bird sitting on its nest, insect life in and around a hollow log, and a swampy landscape with what looks like an iguana (though it's difficult to identify the reptile without colour!). The fifth and final spread reveals that the trail has been left by a small and solitary snail. Pelham has cleverly used mirrored paper to create a puddle that reflects the underside of this final pop-up which is in full colour - the reward at the end of the journey. The simple story (more of a riddle) is told through zen-like rhyming couplets printed on spinning discs which were clearly intended to take a backseat to the complex geometries of Pelham's paper engineering. I was thoroughly impressed by his creations which both popped up and folded down (often the harder of the two) smoothly with no need for manual assistance. Because the pop-up spreads are unrelieved white, it can sometimes take a few seconds to fully understand and appreciate what you are looking at. I didn't find this to be a bad thing because it forced me to slow down and really savour the artistry on each page. Of all of Pelham's pop-up books to date, this one is head and shoulders above the rest and, dare I say it, in the same league as Robert Sabuda. If you plan on buying a copy for your child, do yourself a favour and buy a second one for yourself to enjoy after grubby fingers and careless hands have "enjoyed" the first one to bits.